Space walking Endeavour
astronauts sailed through an add-on job to tension a solar blanket Thursday,
then completed their other tasks in textbook fashion. They topped off
their scheduled activities with an image of an evergreen tree placed
atop the P6 solar array structure, the highest point in their construction
project.

"We had a
great day," Glenda Laws, lead EVA officer, said at an evening briefing.

Space walkers Joe
Tanner and Carlos Noriega also installed a centerline camera cable outside
the Unity module. It will transmit television images to help a shuttle
crew attach the U.S. laboratory Destiny next month. The last of their
scheduled tasks was installation of the Floating Potential Probe. The
FPP, atop the P6, measures the electrical potential of plasma around
the station. The evergreen tree image was on a transfer bag they attached
to the FPP symbolizing "topping out" of the space station
- a tradition followed by Earth-based construction workers when a building
reaches its final height.

The blanket tensioning
task had been quickly and carefully planned. On Wednesday Mission Control
sent up to Endeavour descriptions of the task and video of fellow Astronaut
David Wolf performing the solar blanket work on the ground.

The space walk
began at 10:13 a.m., more than 35 minutes earlier than planned. After
the space walkers moved to the top of the P6, crew members inside Endeavour,
Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Mike Bloomfield and Mission Specialist Marc
Garneau retracted the mast extending the starboard wing, which had been
deployed Sunday, by two or three feet. Noriega pulled the slack tensioning
cables through each take-up reel. Tanner turned the spring-loaded tension
reels, then let them unwind while Noriega guided the cable onto the
reel grooves, tensioning the slack blanket. The 240-foot-long, 38-foot-wide
solar array continues to function well.

The scheduled activities
went so smoothly that Tanner and Noriega were able to complete some
"get-ahead" tasks for the next scheduled space walks outside
the space station in January. These included installing a sensor on
a radiator, installing small antennas and doing a photo survey. Even
so, they were able to conclude their space walk at 3:23 p.m., after
5 hours and 10 minutes outside. This brings total space walk time during
STS-97 to 19 hours and 20 minutes, and total space walk time outside
the station to 88 hours and 54 minutes.

The space station's
crew, Commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri
Gidzenko, packaged items for transfer to Endeavour and return to Earth.
Their scheduled sleep period began a little after 3:30 p.m. They were
to be awakened at 12:06 a.m. Friday. Endeavour's crew was scheduled
to go to bed a little after 10 p.m. and be awakened at 6:06 a.m. Friday.

The two crews will
meet face to face, for the first time since Endeavour docked to the
space station last Saturday, a little after 8:30 a.m. Friday.

The next STS-97
status report will be issued Friday morning.

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